Criminal justice reporter

After searching for half a year, authorities found a convicted Athens sex offender and charged him with failing to register his address.

An arrest warrant was issued for 30-year-old Michael Lee Bugg in May, when the Clarke County Sheriff’s Office conducted its first ever county-wide sex offender compliance check.

Bugg was booked into the Clarke County Jail at 5:46 a.m. Sunday.

When visiting more than 100 homes during the two-day sweep six months ago, authorities arrested two people who were living at unsuitable locations. They also took out probation violation warrants on Bugg and another man because they couldn’t be found at all.

Convicted of attempted rape in 1997, Bugg, like all convicted sex offenders, was supposed to keep his home address on file at the sheriff’s office and notify authorities when he moved. But he wasn’t at his registered home on West Dougherty Street when authorities went looking for him in May. He moved out without letting anyone know.

After six months on the run, Bugg decided to surrender Sunday morning. He mentioned that he has a child on the way and wanted to “do the right thing” and face the probation charge, according to Clarke County sheriff’s Capt. Jimps Cole.

Bugg was just 14 years old when he and two other teens were charged as adults for allegedly raping a victim on Garnett Ridge Drive. As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Bugg pleaded guilty to attempted rape, and a judge ordered Bugg to serve 90 days in a juvenile boot camp facility and placed him on probation for 10 years.

However, because of several violations, that probation was extended to the present day, according to court records.

The other convicted sex offender authorities couldn’t find during the May compliance sweep was 24-year-old Antron Lamont Ballard. He was convicted in 2006 on charges of peeping Tom and public indecency, but when authorities looked for him at his home on O’Kelly Road and he wasn’t there, they took out a probation violation warrant.

He was arrested on the warrant in August.

Authorities called the first county-wide compliance check a success, verifying that nearly all 141 registered sex offenders were living at their registered addresses.

“We want to be more aggressive with compliance checks because what we found out in Athens-Clarke County is that sex offenders, on the average, move three times a year,” said Cole, who coordinated the operation that involved local deputies, Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents and state probation officers.

“They are a very transient group, and it’s important that we make sure they are living where they are supposed to,” Cole said.

The compliance checks didn’t just establish if people lived where they were supposed to, but whether they had any contraband, according to Cole.

That’s why GBI agents were involved, because they knew how to conduct forensic computer investigations. Prohibited pornography was found on some computers, leading to probation violation charges,

Although local sheriffs maintains the registries, law enforcement agencies statewide have websites on which they post the names, photos and addresses of sex offenders as a community service.

Parents with young children, for example, frequently check such sites to see if offenders have moved into their neighborhoods or near schools, according to Cole.

The local sheriff’s office provides an online service called “Offender Watch,” in which people enter certain addresses — like their homes and children’s schools — and receive email alerts if a convicted sex offender moves into those areas.